Letter: 'Scandals' make news, but no difference

Tuesday

Nov 20, 2012 at 12:01 AM

'Scandals' make news,

'Scandals' make news,

but no difference

I have been paying attention to the Petraeus "scandal," the Allen "scandal," etc., and I am really getting fed up with the superior thinking, first from the stone throwers in the U.S. and the press who are more concerned about the sex lives of leaders in the government and its agencies than the jobs and the competence of their work.

In most of Europe: France, UK, etc., many of their leaders have private lives, affairs and relationships that involve things and people other than their immediate families. Most of the time the spouses are even aware of it.

I do not necessarily agree with it, but so long as it does not affect the performance of their jobs, I could care less. If a prime minister, president, agency or bureau director/secretary does his or her job competently and without endangering their country, then "let them do it," whatever within reason and current mores it may be. I do not care who they go to bed with, what emails they send or what their spouses think. Their jobs involve leading; protecting and serving their countries to the best of their abilities. Competence is not determined by their private lives. Do we really think that the leaders in China, Russia, Europe, Scandinavia, the Mideast, etc., lead righteous and non-scandalous lives? If so, then we are the immature people who put our leaders up to standards well beyond our own.

Innuendos should not rule, nor should ex-wives, disgruntled mistresses and publicity-seeking former "friends." They come from the past, most beyond the statutes of limitations, flights of their imaginations, and who are seeking publicity and their 15 minutes of so-called fame; and who care less about whose lives they ruin and then make their countries pay for it. Headlines and alleged scandals should not lead countries; people, even with their fallibilities, do.